The Swedish Market Court (the Court) has annulled on 18 December 2012 the Swedish Competition Authority’s (SCA) interim order prohibiting the Swedish ice hockey league association, Svenska Hockeyligan AB (Hockeyligan), from boycotting players from North America’s National Hockey League (NHL). The Court considered that Hockeyligan’s decision to prohibit its member clubs from entering into short-term contracts with NHL players was part of a general prohibition of short-term contracts, which was justified with regard to the specificity of sport.

Following a decision to open an ex-officio investigation into Hockeyligan’s conduct, the SCA issued an interim order on 20 September 2012 prohibiting Hockeyligan from applying its decision while the SCA’s investigation was pending. Hockeyligan appealed the interim order to the Court.

On 12 October 2012 the Court rejected Hockeyligan’s request for a stay of the SCA’s interim order while the appeal was being heard.

In its decision of 18 December 2012, the Court held that, as an association of undertakings, competition law applies to Hockeyligan as well as to its owner clubs individually. The Court also rejected Hockeyligan’s contention that the decision should be exempt from competition law as it constituted an agreement between employers regarding terms of employment.

However, the Court considered that Hockeyligan’s decision to prohibit the engagement of locked-out NHL-players on short-term contracts was part of a general prohibition on short-term contracts adopted by Hockeyligan in 2006. Accordingly, the Court found that Hockeyligan’s decision of 21 August 2012 did not amount to a boycott of NHL players wishing to play in the Swedish ice hockey league in the event of a lock-out, but merely a reminder that the general prohibition on short-term contracts applies also to them.

The Court found that the prohibition is justified by sporting objectives, and that any resultant anti-competitive effects of the rule are proportionate to those objectives. Consequently, the Court annulled the SCA´s interim order.

Mid-January 2013, a new collective agreement was reached in the NHL and the NHL season was finally launched, meaning that the previously locked-out NHL players are no longer available to play in Sweden. The SCA found therefore that there were no longer grounds to pursue its investigation into the matter and closed its investigation on 21 January 2013.

The Market Court’s decision (in Swedish).

The Swedish Competition Authority’s decision to close the case (in Swedish).